Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 18 / Trend, E. Ismayilov /
Nearly $431.3 million has been allocated between the time the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) began financing the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project and January 1, 2013, according to a statement posted on the official website of the Fund.
According to the report, over the last year this figure hit $151.5 million.
Funds allocated to the Ministry of Transport of Azerbaijan through the International Bank of Azerbaijan in accordance with an agreement signed between the governments of Azerbaijan and Georgia were transferred to Marabda-Kartsakhi Ltd. Marabda-Kartsakhi was founded to design, construct, rehabilitate, renovate and operate the Marabda railway on the border with Turkey and relevant infrastructure objects.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being constructed as part of a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement.
Azerbaijan assigned a loan of $775 million to the construction of the railway's Georgian section. This project is financed by the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan in compliance with an order of the President of Azerbaijan 'On the Implementation of Measures on Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Project' dated February 21, 2007.
Plans exist to construct a new 105-kilometre branch railroad within the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. In addition, the Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Marabda railway will be reconstructed in Georgia which will increase its capacity to 15 million tons of cargo per year. It is planned to build a place in Akhalkalaki for the transition of trains from the existing train tracks in Georgia to the European one.
Peak capacity of the corridor will be 17 million tons of cargo. This figure will initially be at the level of one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo.